At a loss to know how to reply adequately to such a generous and instant offer of friendship, Sheena gave a tremulous smile.
Thus encouraged Gussie pumped her hand vigorously to add weight and proper emphasis to her offer of assistance.
“Aye, Sheena, don’t you worry yersel once we set sail, Ah’ll be stickin close to you and your bairns. Ah’ll stick closer tae ye than shite tae a hairy blanket.”
Sheena who could swear as heartily as any navvy when the occasion demanded it, could feel herself wince at such a crude description of undying friendship. At the same time, she wondered if perhaps she had been overhasty in in her acceptance of a travelling companion.
Once aboard, in the scramble for bed space, Sheena found that there was indeed safety in numbers and between the two women and Fergus, they managed to get as much space as they possibly could, with the two families close together in a corner of the hold to which they’d been directed.
On asking an officer if they would all be thus confined for the entire duration of the voyage, he told them that if and when weather conditions permitted, the Captain would allow children and those adults who wished to take advantage of the special facility to climb the ladders of the hold and get out on deck for a brief respite for a breath of fresh air. Sheena and Gussie took one look at the steep climb which such an outing would necessitate and as Gussie said, “Nae mountaineerin for me, thanks all the same. But the days that the weans are up top on deck, we’ll mibbe get a wee rest tae oorsells doon here and we can aye use the time tae tidy up roonaboot the beds and that.”
Sheena nodded. “Good thinkin, Gussie, that’ll dae us fine.”
Chapter 13
With the children for once safely up on deck far above the stinking, overcrowded hold in which they were existing on their nightmare journey, Sheena and her friend Gussie chatted away happily together as they did their best to tidy up and clean the cramped space they’d been allocated as their living quarters on the ship. As Gussie squeezed her ample bulk between the makeshift beds, she looked over at Sheena, grinned and said, “Nae bloody wonder they call these boats ‘coffin beds’ ... Honest tae god, ye’d have mair room in yer coffin.”
Sheena laughed. “Aye, ye could be right at that, hen, but let’s hope it’ll be many a lang day afore we put the truth of that theory tae the test.”
As the two friends giggled , one of the other women passengers sitting nearby on the edge of a bed, with head in hands, looked up and with a sour expression on her face said, “Is there nae peace tae be had on this bloody boat? Glad tae hear ye two eejits can get a laugh out of this nightmare journey. What with storms, seasickness, poor mothers screaming in the agonies of childbirth behind a blanket screen, us all herded in like cattle, it’s hell on earth, and certainly damn all that’s funny. Anyway, for yer information, they’re cried coffin ships because they carry us away from Scotland to oor last resting-place and nine times oota ten that’s a watery grave in the Atlantic or some ither Ocean.”
Sheena and Gussie exchanged meaningful glances and Gussie as though by now hell-bent on verbal battle, planked her hands on hips, glared at the Moaning Minnie and said, “It’s just one helluva good job that us yins werenae needin for tae be cheered up, that’s real depressing what ye’ve just telt us.”
She paused and noticing that a man had joined ‘Moanin Minnie’, Gussie said, “Anyway it cannae be all doom and gloom. Lots of folk make it safely tae Canada, America or Australia. Therr’s ma man, ma ain man for instance, he was one of them, arrived jacose as ye like in Canada, got a new job, a new life, doing great and ...”
Moanin Minnie got to her feet. “Listen you if Ah hear one mair word aboot your sainted husband, Ah’ll be having a fit of the screaming habjabs. Anyway, having listened tae you gitterin on for days on end, seems tae me nae bloody wonder yer man’s happy noo ... for any new life far away from ye would bound tae be great.”
Sheena by now all too aware that before long this could develop into a free-for all and hoping to be the peace-maker, she gave what she hoped was a fairly ingratiating smile. “Ah think we should mibbe just let matters rest there.”
Thank goodness Fergus is up on deck with the children, Sheena thought.
Aloud she said, “Sorry about all that. Anyway, I’d been about tae tell ye that lots of people do make it safely to Canada or wherever. And anyway, even if there should be disaster at sea, even if oor ain ship ever did get intae difficulties at the height of a storm, seein as these emigrant ships sail in convoys ...”
Gussie interrupted. “That’s right, Sheena, my man wrote and telt me, once he’d arrived in Canada, of course, and got a new life and a new life and ...” Gussie let her words fade away as she suddenly realised how yet again she was boasting about her husband.
Sheena took up the story. “Well, if we did come a cropper, there would always be somebody to pick us up from one of the other convoy ships.”
Moaning Minnie’s husband appeared to digest this nougat of information, then said, “Mphm, ye could be right at that Missus, but the way Ah heard it was ... if any other boat picks ye up hauf-drooned, like as not they’d take ye back tae Greenock your home port, seein as how ye hadnae paid ony fare, ticket money tae yer recuers.”
He turned to his wife “There ye are then, hen, all sorted oot and no worth ye getting in a stushie aboot something that’s no gonnae happen anyway.” His wife, smirking up at him said, “Fine weel Ah knew Ah could count on you, Archie, no a bad soul, are ye?”
As he led his wife well away from Sheena and her friend, a frantic voice from the other side of the hold screamed, “Fire, Fire, oh dear God ... look at that bed, it’s on fire. Fire. Fire.”
As the urgent call was taken up and passengers immediately started running hither and thither, a seaman whose face could only be dimly made out peering down into the hold yelled, “Ye’ve got bags of sand, buckets of water down there, use them and be bloody quick aboot it.”
With that, even as frantic, fear-crazed passengers were already trying to scramble their way up the steep ladder, with a noise like a clap of thunder, the covers of the hold were slammed shut.
Sheena thought, thank God the bairns are safe up on deck and Fergus is with them. Even if he cannae save himself, he’ll somehow get the bairns to safety. Oh God, is this what my life has all been about?
Sheena looked in horror at the scene of chaos all around them. People who’d fallen were being trampled underfoot as others fought desperately to get a foothold on the ladder, while those on the top rungs were hammering desperately at the overhead hold’s cover, now presumably locked and bolted on the other side.
The flames still gaining in ferocity made more and more futile any efforts to put out the fire.
Sheena thought, if it’s true that Hell awaits the sinner, Sweet Jesus, Ah’m here areadies; ma journey is over.
Lara’s Story
Chapter 1
1839
Lara Bell dried off her hands and gave a sigh of relief that for the moment at least she and Lizzie, the skivvy, had cleared away the last of the breakfast dishes from her upstairs employers and their house-guests. She looked down at her hands and then recalling in vivid detail the events of the previous evening, suddenly she felt dirty, soiled and in desperate need to wash her hands again and again. She was completing this ritual for about the seventh time when the voice of the housekeeper caused Lara to raise her head.
“Oh sorry, Mistress Adams, what did you say?”
The tight-lipped housekeeper tutted.
“I said and I will say it again ... it looks as if Cook is not giving you enough work to keep you busy. The duties of an assistant cook are many and varied, but they do not include time and energy devoted exclusively to your own toilette. Do I make myself clear?”
Lara mumbled an apology.
Mrs Adams gave her a long hard look, then swept her officious way out of the kitchen. No sooner had she gone than Cook beckoned Lara across.
“Right, my girl and ju
st what was all that about?”
Lara could feel her lower lip tremble and tears sprang to her eyes.
Seeing this, Mrs Frame, whose vast experience of life and a soft heart was well hidden in her buxom body at once said, “A cup of tea that’s what we both need. Lara, fill the kettle, then tell me what ails you this morning, for goodness sake, for I know there’s more to it than just another ticking off from our high-n-mighty housekeeper. And don’t deny it, for I know I’m right.”
Lara nodded even as she wondered how much or how little of her problem she should reveal. Then once started on her story she found that somehow the words tumbled out, almost of their own volition. When she finished speaking, a silence fell between them, the only sounds being the bubbling of the soup pot on the hob and the clink of a spent coal as it hit the ashcan.
Finally Mrs Frame leant forward, looked first to the left, then to the right of her shoulder and having ascertained that no-one else was in the kitchen, she said, “Now let me get this straight ... you’re saying that one of the houseguests ... not to put too fine a point on it ... tried to force himself on you?”
Lara could feel the hot colour flood her cheeks, even at the very mention of the event, the vile event, which had caused her a sleepless night of tossing and turning.
She nodded and Cook went on, “But listen, Lara, I don’t understand, you’re downstairs here in the kitchen, you have no contact with them upstairs, not even as if you were a parlour maid.”
“That’s true enough. But young Lizzie was still up to the elbows in dirty pots last night so I went out to the middens. One of the guests was standing nearby in the yard, taking the night air, it was moonlight, he saw me ... and for all I know mibbe he thought with me being at the middens that I was rubbish as well, fair game, ye might say. Anyway, he walked over to me and ...”
Another silence in which both women had their own mental image of what had happened, then Lara said, “But ye see my Mammy, she aye warned me well, why I don’t know – it aye seemed tae me she had a real bee in her bonnet aboot it – but before I ever came into service, even those years ago as a kitchen skivvy she was forever giving me a real old lecture about it, told me again and again ... never, never, ever let house guests, drunk or otherwise, have their way with you.”
Mrs Frame frowned. “So what exactly happened tae you last night, what really is it that ye’re saying Lara?”
Lara took a deep breath “I fought back. I still had the rubbish container in my hand, I had yon big enamel bucket in my hand and the very minute he came anywhere near me, I whacked him with it, hard as I could.”
Mrs Frame sighed. “So if ye defended yersel tae that extent, it would seem tae me that, except in yer ain vivid imagination, nothing bad really happened tae you. That being the case it seems tae me ye’re still pure as the driven snow. Pity ye hadnae telt me that at the beginning of yer long story, ye could have saved us both a bit of time and worry. Anyway, my best advice tae you noo, is put the whole sorry business oota yer heid and if anythin like that should ever happen tae ye again, one thing’s sure ... at least ye know ye’re a dab hand wi a big enamel bucket for a weapon. Noo, can we get back tae work?”
Chapter 2
With her heart lightened by having shared her shameful secret and worries, Lara spent the rest of that morning in going about her kitchen duties with a vigour and enthusiasm she knew full well she had previously lacked. She was up to the arms in potato-peelings when the parlour maid stuck her head in the doorway and called out, “Lara, the Mistress wants to see you upstairs in the drawing-room and she said now ... so best be quick.”
Lara and Mrs Frame cast meaningful looks at each other. Having dried her hands, smoothed back her flyaway hair tidily into the mobcap and patted down her apron front, Lara left the kitchen at high speed.
What now? she wondered.
With Lara standing head-bowed before her employer, the latter lost no time in addressing the matter in hand.
“Right, Bell, Mrs Adams tells me she has been dissatisfied with your work of recent weeks.”
Not knowing whether she was supposed, expected even, to say ‘yes or ‘no’ to this barbed comment, Lara took the coward’s way out and mumbled a non-committal, “Sorry, Madam, sorry.”
Mrs Knight frowned. “Sorry is all very well, easily said but I’m afraid that simply will not do. Had it been the quality of your work alone under discussion and given that my excellent cook is still training you, I would, of course, have been prepared to give you another chance.”
Lara looked up hopefully and was totally unprepared for what her employer said next.
“It is this other matter, this very serious accusation against you that means I must dismiss you from my employ and even more importantly and with even greater urgency from the sanctity of my home.”
Lara could feel her eyes widen in surprise.
“Sorry Madam ... but I do not understand ... an accusation you say, a serious accusation ... but see me, I havenae did nothin bad against nobody ...” Lara let her words trail off as she thought, nothin bad against nobody? Haud on a minute ... what aboot that randy bastard I took a swipe at last night with the rubbish bucket? Oh no, dear God, she couldnae really be referrin tae that, could she?
Mrs Knight stood up from behind the desk, the move indicating beyond all doubt that the interview or whatever it had been was over.
By now feeling that her kitchen apron was on a decidedly shaky nail and again on the verge of tears, Lara said, “But please Mistress Knight, you have to tell me ...”
The older woman drew herself to her full height. “As your now former employer, I have to tell you nothing. However, out of the goodness of my heart, there is one thing I will say before you pack your bags and leave my home ...” Lara waited in an agony of suspense until the woman said, “Perhaps next time a gentleman offers to help you with a burden, you will not immediately mistrust his motives. Nor will you whack him across the face with a heavy enamel bucket to the detriment to his health and to the provision of ... of all things and so utterly common ... a black eye such as one might see on any member of the lower, unwashed orders of society.”
With that final admonition and bit of advice still ringing in her ears, with the speed of lightning, Lara then found herself out in the wynd, her bundles at her feet and with not a single idea in her head as to where she could go.
Chapter 3
As Lara stood there in the wynd, she chewed at her lower lip in an even greater agony of indecision than that she had previously endured when standing before Mrs Knight. But now the matter was of even greater urgency. Still unclear in her mind as to where she was heading, like someone in a nightmare, she walked blindly to the end of the street.
As she made to turn the corner into the Saltmarket, an Irish-sounding voice stopped her progress with the words, “Ye’ll not be getting down that street this day, my girl. The Bread Rioters have already barricaded it with planks of wood and even with a coal-cart.”
Lara turned to face the young man who had just spoken to her and said, “Have they indeed, so they’ve barricaded it? But tell me this, are all the streets roundabout here closed off? And if they are, what possible business is it of the Bread Rioters, whoever they might be?”
The young man laughed.
As Lara made to turn away from him, he took a long reflective look at her and her bundles.
“Uch God love ye, lass,” he said. “I should have realised. From the look of you I’d say ye’re just newly off the boat from the Highlands so how could you know anything at all about the Bread Riots here in Glasgow. I suppose too that ye’ll be looking for work?”
Lara gave a faint nod of her head and he went on, “Well, sorry to disappoint ye, lass, but ’tis common knowledge hereabouts that Glasgow is already bursting at the seams. What with all the Highland Clearance folk and hundreds and hundreds of my own people escaping from the Potato Famine ... and all of us, starvin o hunger, damn well homeless and all desperate for work.”
Lara saw no reason to correct this stranger’s assumption that she was just recently arrived in the City, so she mumbled something about, “Aye, I believe I overheard another passenger mention about ... let’s see, the Chartists, that’s them. They’ve been recently organising meetings at the Glasgow Green. So, dae you tell me, is that what’s happenin the day, with streets so weel barricaded off that decent folk cannae get about their lawful business?”
He nodded, “’Tis that, and if you’re not otherwise engaged, and if ye’ve a mind to join the mass meeting, it’s me, Mike Bradie, that would be happy to escort your own self, you not knowing your way about the city streets and all that.”
As Lara digested this proposal, she was of a mind to refuse his offer of help. But then she thought, my father was a Radical leader and it would be at such gatherings he spoke up for Scotland’s workers and their rights. No sooner had this thought gone through her head, than Lara remembered something else. Aye, my dear-departed Mammy was forever going on at me, each time I was naughty or even downright bad and bloody-minded, then she would start up her usual chant, ‘Keep going on against authority, my girl, keep on like that and one thing’s for sure ... you’ll end up like your father.’ ... and so on and on it had gone over the years of her upbringing.
By now lost in a dwam of past memories, Lara emerged from the mists of time and there and then made up her mind.
Well, from all accounts, my father, a good man, forever acted against authority; so, why should I not join the Bread Rioters? Maybe being against the high heid yins in society, mibbe it does run in my blood. So if I have ended up like my father, there’s no better person. So why not join the Bread Rioters it isn’t as if I’m doing anything else anyway.
In Loving Memory Page 12